"Medic! Someone get a medic!" Sara was yelling now even as she scrambled towards Sophia who by some miracle was still conscious despite the fact that blood was pooling beneath her and seeping into her long blond hair.

Nick was already on it. "This is CSI Stokes; we need a medic unit at 1209 Wild Horse Circle. We have an officer down, I repeat, we have an officer down!" He sounded much calmer than he looked after having just shot a man to death.

Sophia had fear in her eyes as she struggled for breath.

"Hold still Sophia, you're going to be ok." Sara wasn't sure that was true, but as she pressed her hand to the wound on Sophia's side, she needed to reassure herself in order to remain calm. "Just hold on, the paramedics are on their way."

"I'm going to die." It was the sound of resignation in her voice that caught both Nick and Sara by surprise; in the time they'd known Sophia, she had shown herself to be a tenacious fighter.

"Don't talk that way; you're going to make it." Nick was down on his knees now, knowing that if Sophia slipped into shock that she probably wouldn't make it from the blood loss alone. He gripped her hand as Sara continued to press against the wound.

Somewhere in all of the commotion, Grissom and Officer Jackson had made their way to the foyer. Jackson was talking fast and furious on his radio to dispatch to hurry and get backup there now and Grissom was trying to remember every detail he'd seen upstairs knowing now that the murder investigation was going to have to be handed off; everyone here would be remanded while an internal investigation into why the scene wasn't truly cleared was done. Grissom looked at Sophia with a worried expression; everything that could be done for her at that moment was already being done and he felt helpless.

"Medics are on their way, Sophia...c'mon, hang on." Sara was pleading with her to stay with them, but her eyes kept flitting shut.

"Sophia." Grissom looked deeply troubled. "You need to stay with us." His voice had a soothing effect on everyone in the room at that moment, except perhaps on himself. He always dreaded hearing that someone he'd worked with had been injured or killed, but being there in the middle of it was even worse. He was racking his brain to try and remember exactly who Sophia's next of kin was; something that when he had been her supervisor would have been his responsibility to know, or at least take care of if she didn't make it. Now that would be someone else's responsibility, someone at PD probably. He only hoped that when they were notified that the news wouldn't be grave.

"I don't think I'm going to make it." Sophia's voice was weak and there was a vein of panic running through it. "Tell...tell..." She looked right at Grissom and her eyes widened as a jolt of pain shot through her. "Grissom...tell...I love..." Her eyes fluttered shut, her face looking deathly pale.

"Get the medics here now!" Sara screamed to no one in particular.

"Sophia, listen to my voice." Nick squeezed her hand and surprisingly got a squeeze back. "Now listen to me. The paramedics are almost here...now hear that siren, they're coming for you. You need to promise me that you're gonna stay with us here, ok?" He felt her faintly squeeze his hand. "Ok, good job, just concentrate on my voice."

The medic unit had pulled up in front of the house and paramedics were quickly swarming into the house, pushing Nick away as they began to work on her. Sara only consented to move once the medics realized she was applying pressure to the wound and quickly took her place. The rest of them just stood there in a daze, only Officer Jackson seemed to have the presence of mind to call the Sheriff to fill him in on what he knew and where the paramedics said they were going to transport Sophia.

Almost as quickly as they'd arrived, it seemed that they were gone, whisking Sophia away into the back of an ambulance for a rendezvous with a life flight helicopter. There was no guarantee that she would survive and they all knew it. They also all knew how easily it could have been any one of them.

Other police officers had arrived and Ecklie himself was probably on the way along with other CSIs to finish processing the scene. Grissom had spoken to him just after the medic unit arrived and he'd instructed them all to stay put until he said otherwise.

"There's so much blood." Sara looked down at the floor where Sophia's blood had pooled; she hadn't even really taken into account the amount of blood that was all over her and her clothing from trying to put pressure on the wound.

"Sara, you're evidence." Grissom wanted to make sure that Sara didn't move until they'd all been processed by the team that Ecklie was assembling to replace them. It wasn't that he couldn't appreciate the shock that they were all in, he just wanted what happened to Sophia to have a reason; they couldn't give up on their colleague by giving up on their job.

Sara looked at him quizzically for a moment and then it finally registered how much blood she had gotten on herself. She felt immediately sick, not only from the blood, but from the idea that someone that she'd worked so closely with had lost that much blood and how easily it could have been her if the suspect had chosen to fire her direction. Sophia at least had the Kevlar vest, Sara didn't. Her voice sounded hollow as she responded. "Yes, of course, you're right. Evidence." She was going to hold onto that thought or she was going to have a meltdown.

Nick looked at her with a worried expression; he knew how much she hated body fluids and he'd seen her empty her stomach contents on more than one occasion as a result. "You doing ok there, Sar?" He knew how much she liked to project a strong demeanor, but he'd caught glimpses of the softer side of Sara once in a while and he knew that this had deeply affected her.

"We're all evidence, Nick." Grissom's tone sounded a bit gentler now as he heard police sirens wailing in the distance as more units responded. "We need to make sure we do this by the book so the scene upstairs isn't compromised."

Nick clenched his jaw. "I know that." He was frustrated. He had just shot and killed someone that had shot a friend; a friend that right now they didn't know would even survive. Emotions were swirling around inside of him and he just wanted to get the hell out of there and run or drive or do something to get his mind off of the fact that in this job everyday could be your last day.

Grissom could sense the tension in the room and he felt a bit powerless in the face of wanting to preserve the crime scene. "We're all concerned about Sophia, Nicky." There was a bit of a waver in Grissom's voice that was just barely detectible as he began to relive the uncertainty when Brass had been shot just a few months before. He quirked a brow in Nick's direction. "But how can we help her if we compromise the scene?"

Nick nodded in response. "I know, Grissom, I know." He glanced over at Sara and as he watched the conflicting emotions washing over her face as she undoubtedly was reliving the last few minutes over and over, second guessing herself about not shooting the suspect herself, he clenched his jaw as he tried to stifle the need to give his friend a hug. To even touch her right now would contaminate the evidence. His gut had told him that things weren't right from the moment he'd walked across the threshold of that house, and now Sophia was fighting for her life. Oh, how he wished that he could turn back time.